Splatter: on FILM

Team…uh…Edward? Bella? Jacob…Team, uh, Howard?

So, I did it. Pulled the old bait and switch. TS3 was exiting the theater, and my curiosity pervaded my decision-making centers and pulled me into the next theater in time to see Bryce Dallas Howard in a bare-toothed battle against Robert Pattinson. My sister’s boyfriend calls my action petty larceny. Semantics. I feel that I was the one wronged. I had a skin-glimmer of hope that Oprah was right this time and that this extreme, blood-soaked trilogy was worth its weight. But wait, what’s going on? I stifled the laugh from the back row of the sniffling audience as Taylor welled up all of the sweat that he could muster from his well-read abs. Sadly his best acting occurred beneath CGI fur. And Pattinson showed all fifteen magnum facial expressions as Bella professed that her agitated life force found its belonging in his ways and and in his kind. You know that feeling when you’ve cried so hard you start to laugh? Or throw up. Or that feeling of feeling nothing because you don’t understand the popularity of these three awkward enemies finally finding friendship and love. Wow.

Yes, I’ve opened the book…research. I perused a few chapters. It seems enticing, certainly. I want to understand the fanaticism, and the rare eqinanimous love affair with book and film alike. Perhaps the effect of a ubiquitous media education…and what my mother calls demonic influence.
Dakota Fanning says she really enjoyed the challenge of wearing the red contacts. I’m glad that she and Kristen are friends. Everyone needs friends. The big puzzle for me is Bryce. Bryce, daughter of filmmaker Ron Howard & M. Night’s fav it girl, is an actual actress. She, however, may also have let curiosity damage her hypothalamus.